Mon Aug 29, 2005 2:13 am
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
(This book is absolutely ace, I just loved it every single bit of it, finished it in record time and I'm a notoriously slow reader)
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
(I'm still working on this beast, it's been almost a year now, but when I've had a chance to read it between studying, exams and other books it's always been darn good)
1984 - George Orwell
(gee, who doesn't have this on their list?)
A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There - Aldo Leopold
(an early work on conservation, some of the language seems a bit old fashioned anthropomorphising the animals a little but this man new his environment. In particular read his essay on Land Ethics, it ought to be compulsory reading for everyone)
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
(The Beatnik bible, before they became too concerned with infighting, coffee and bad poetry they went on mad road trips across the US and into Mexico, living life as fast and as full as possible, experiencing everything they could)
Into the Wild - John Krakauer
(The true story of Chris McCandless, who chose a different way through life, essentially chose a life as a bum but lived more in his few years than many people ever do. Essentially a modern day Thoreau. Tragically lost his life after living off the land in Alaska for 113 days by eating a plant that at that point hadn't been known to be poisonous. You'll both love him and hate him, but despite it all the guy's a personal hero to me)
(This book is absolutely ace, I just loved it every single bit of it, finished it in record time and I'm a notoriously slow reader)
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
(I'm still working on this beast, it's been almost a year now, but when I've had a chance to read it between studying, exams and other books it's always been darn good)
1984 - George Orwell
(gee, who doesn't have this on their list?)
A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There - Aldo Leopold
(an early work on conservation, some of the language seems a bit old fashioned anthropomorphising the animals a little but this man new his environment. In particular read his essay on Land Ethics, it ought to be compulsory reading for everyone)
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
(The Beatnik bible, before they became too concerned with infighting, coffee and bad poetry they went on mad road trips across the US and into Mexico, living life as fast and as full as possible, experiencing everything they could)
Into the Wild - John Krakauer
(The true story of Chris McCandless, who chose a different way through life, essentially chose a life as a bum but lived more in his few years than many people ever do. Essentially a modern day Thoreau. Tragically lost his life after living off the land in Alaska for 113 days by eating a plant that at that point hadn't been known to be poisonous. You'll both love him and hate him, but despite it all the guy's a personal hero to me)
- I read it a while back, albeit reluctantly at first. I enjoyed it, as a thriller anyway, it was good fun, quite well done, couldnt put it down in fact; but as a revelation of occult history, well let's just say that i laughed quite a lot and at times it annoyed me. My daughter loved it and questioned me at length about the *revelations* of secret iconography hoping that I'd tell her it was true and that she'd discovered some mystic secret (rememeber I have an MA in Renaissance Art and I specialised in iconography and Neo-Platonism) and she was most upset to find that Mr Brown's theories were to put it mildly bunk. a Woman in the Last Supper indeed! anyone who's remotely studied Renaissance Art knows that major part of the Rinascimento ethos was to portray the classical ideal, so young men were shown as soft-featured idealised slightly effeminate youths with pale-skins and flowing locks. i can point out dozens of paintings that do exactly the same; angels are depicted like this even though they are male, even Jesus is portrayed in that way, especially by Piero della Francesca, Ghirlandaio, Verrochio and Domenico Veneziano, all of whom were well known to LdV, he studied their work thoroughly and indeed was a pupil in Verrochio's school.
), but nonetheless it was quite enjoyable in the matter of suspense and storytelling. And you gotta hand it to the guy that it's quite impressive that his book is one of the best selling books in history. I've also read his book Angels & Demons, which was a good book as well. And I read his Digital Fortress, but that was quite a let down considering his other work. It wasn't really bad, but nothing extraordinary either.
